Annaleigh Ashford and Jake Gyllenhaal attended the Sunday in the Park with George opening night after party at The New York Public Library in New York City, February 23, 2017.

By Jenny Anderson/Getty Images.

For Annaleigh Ashford, performing in the current Broadway revival of Steven Sondheim’sSunday in the Park with George means inhabiting two very different roles: in the first act: Dot, George Seurat’s mistress and a frequent model for his paintings . . . and, in the second act (which skips ahead a century), the 98-year-old Marie, Dot’s daughter. “By the time I exit, I hope that you believe that I’m 98,” Ashford, chuckling, told Vanity Fair on the morning after the show’s opening. “That’s always the goal.” Ashford, 31 years old herself, says she thinks of the two women she is playing in the show as two distinct people. “I feel very motherly toward Marie when I’m Dot, and I feel very daughterly toward Dot when I’m Marie.”

Ashford’s standout performance in the revival—opposite Jake Gyllenhaal (who plays George in the first act, and then George’s grandson in the second act)—has earned her plaudits (The New York Timesdescribed her as “luminous” in the role, as she “makes you appreciate the acuity of her insights into what George is and does”).

The project initially was birthed as a two-night run at New York City Center last year, with, at first, only Gyllenhaal attached. Ashford says when she saw that Gyllenhaal was taking on the musical, she said to her husband, “God I would love to do that—but they’ll never pick me.” When they did, in fact, pick her, Ashford was somewhat taken aback: “When they called to find out if I was available and to make sure that I could sing a low note in the show, I was totally shocked and overwhelmed and absolutely honored. It's been one of the gifts of my life, playing this part. It's just been a tremendous honor.” The role was originated by Bernadette Peters, who arrived backstage opening night, understandably elating Ashford. “She came backstage after the show, with Sondheim and [writer James Lapine], and I obviously immediately cried because she's an idol of mine, and also because I think that I get to share a piece of her soul every night. She crafted the role so beautifully. Even though I don't know her, I feel her all over it, and I ask her questions each night and I find the answers through the words.”

Ashford had not met Gyllenhaal before starting rehearsals on the show, but she says they were “kindred spirits straight from the start.” Gyllenhaal is revelatory in the role, embodying George’s ennui and angst—and pulling off his challenging musical numbers comfortably, as well. (In perhaps the show’s most arresting moment, Gyllenhaal performs one song almost entirely from the perspective of a dog.) Ashford notes, “He's obviously a gifted, brilliant actor. But then on top of that, the best-kept secret in show business [is that] he's a brilliant singer, too. His voice is amazing. And then he also just happens to be an incredible human. I feel like we're weirdly related now. We share a bathroom, so I feel like we're related.”

The show, which asserts the importance of the arts and the challenges of an artist's solitary life, is particularly resonant now. “The N.E.A. right now is in jeopardy of losing quite a bit of funding, and when we first did the concert in October things had not changed in the world so dramatically as they have changed now,” Ashford notes. “And this show came about [from] two grants from the N.E.A. So there feels like a great need to remind people of how important arts are: to our life, to our culture, to our society.” In particular, Ashford recalls the timeliness of one line her character delivers in the show: “There are only two worthwhile things to leave behind when you depart this world: children and art.”

The show is running for only a short two months—tickets are proving to be quite hard to come by—and its producing team has decided not to submit it for any Tony Awards. (Sources suggest that’s in order to avoid having to give away approximately 1,600 tickets to Tony voters, which would mean losing a large chunk of the show’s revenue.) Ashford seems to be just fine with the decision. “I think that everybody's intention to do this show was to celebrate the show and also give it to the world for as long as we could,” she says. “And I think that was the motivating factor of being able to put it on the stage again. I think there's something beautiful about the art of making art, and it just will live and breathe.”